Dark Souls creator “masochistic”, made the game for himself

From Software doesn’t take pleasure in your pain over the punishing difficulty of Dark Souls: Creative director Hidetaka Miyazaki tailored the game to his own wants.

Edge asked Miyazaki how he felt about being called cruel and sadistic.

“If I had to say for myself, it’s actually the opposite – I’m more masochistic,” he replied.

“Because I created Dark Souls while thinking about what type of game I would personally like to play. I wanted somebody to bring out a really sadistic game, but I ended up having to make it myself.”

That said, Miyazaki is aware that not everybody wants to be relentlessly beaten to a pulp, and gave assurances that using “cheap strategies” is a perfectly valid way of playing.

“I want people to have fun with strategising,” he said, mentioning tactics like poison arrows and coaxing enemies off ledges.

“That was definitely something that was intentional. There’s one approach to combat that involves a head-to-head collision, but luring enemies and using cheap strategies is one of the joys of this game as well.”

The developer also acknowledged and apologised for issues which plagued the game at launch.

“There were technical difficulties. I don’t believe that it’s okay to have them, but realistically speaking, it was quite a large-scale game – even in terms of budget and expectations,” he explained.

“So we’re very sorry for the trouble we’ve caused by our processing errors and bugs from Japan. It was a title that we haven’t really experienced in all aspects, so there were areas where we felt our technical side couldn’t keep up with the game’s scope, like an increasingly growing ache.

“I didn’t mind the growing pains. We accept the game as it is, and that it’s just a part of the learning curve.”

Dark Souls released last year on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 and is perfectly splendid.